“It bothers me. I’ll admit it,” Stahl said. “I don’t want people to think I would rig a newswoman’s car to blow up. But I don’t know what to do about it except wait. Either we’ll catch the real bomber, or the normal workings of Homicide Special will make it clear to everybody we couldn’t have done it.”

“They already have enough evidence to prove that now,” said Diane. “I don’t think everybody’s convinced. But I guess that’s the least important worry we have.”

Stahl drove with Diane to the office of his security company on Sepulveda Boulevard. They parked in the outdoor lot and walked around to the front of the office building. She looked at the red brick, the strange glassed-in set of exterior steps, and up ahead at the row of office doors along the balcony above. “Wow,” she said. “That is one ugly building.”

“It’s cheap. And the office is upstairs beyond the balcony where you can’t see it from outside.”

“If you ever call and say you’re staying late at the office, I’ll know you’re lying. Nobody could stand to.”

“It’s not as bad inside.”

“I’m sure. How could it be?”

“I was going to ask if you wanted to get into the security business. I haven’t spent time on it in months, and I could use the help.”

“I’ll consider it, if the money is right. But only until the police take me back.”

They took the elevator beside the top of the concrete steps, got out at the third floor, walked past the long row of offices, and then stopped at a door that faced away from the balcony.

She looked at the door. It read: NO-FAIL SECURITY in corroded brass letters. “How do you ever get customers?”

“It’s sort of a word-of-mouth business. If people need my kind of help, they ask around.”

He opened the door and they entered the waiting room. Diane saw that the receptionist, a pretty black woman about thirty years old, was behind a wall of bulletproof glass. Stahl waved his hand at her, and she reached for a button. There was a buzz and Diane heard the sound of a bolt retracting in the steel door.

They went through the interior door, where another woman about forty-five with long blond hair sat at a desk in a large office. She looked up and saw him. “Dick,” she said.

“Hi, Valerie. This is Diane.” He turned to Diane. “Valerie runs the business.”

“The money part, not the part that matters,” Valerie said. “I’m a certified public accountant. Pleased to meet you.”

Valerie glanced at the receptionist. “And this is Clarissa, who does everything else.”

Diane stepped to the receptionist and held out her hand. “Diane.”

The receptionist smiled. “It’s a pleasure. But I’m surprised to see you two here this morning.”

“Why?” said Diane. “He said you were expecting us.”

“That bomb business in the subway. I really thought they’d call you in.”

Stahl had his phone out, looking at the screen. “Nothing. Don’t tell me they’re that stupid.” He dialed a number, then said, “This is Dick Stahl. Is Deputy Chief Ogden available?” He listened for a moment. “I see. Can you tell me where it is? Thank you.”

He turned to the others. “Somebody set off a bomb on the tracks in the Red Line subway in North Hollywood and it caused a wreck.” He looked at his phone for a few more seconds. “I’d better get over there. Are you up to coming with me?”

“If I wait here you’ll get there faster,” Diane said. “And I don’t want to be part of the news story.”

He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’ll see you as soon as I can.”

As the casualties of the subway crash were brought to the surface by elevator and escalator, they were loaded into ambulances and driven north on Lankershim Boulevard toward Valley Presbyterian, east to Providence Saint Joseph in Burbank, or south toward UCLA. The rescue was rapid. One moment there were thirty ambulances lined up along the curb near the station, and ten minutes later there were none. The police and sheriff’s deputies kept the traffic moving across the nearby intersections, and kept a lane free for emergency vehicles.

In the sky a swarm of helicopters circled, the throbbing rotors and growling engines making it hard for the rescuers to hear a human voice. The cops and EMTs had to rely on practiced procedure and hand signals to get the patients away.

Dick Stahl pulled his car into the parking structure of a nearby supermarket and trotted to the mouth of the subway. When he got there he saw Judy Welsh, the agent from Raleigh who had been assigned to Team Four.

She was near the parked bomb truck talking on a device with a wire that ran down into the escalator pit. Stahl assumed they had set up a hard connection for communication so they could maintain a no-cell-phones zone. Cells didn’t work very well belowground anyway. As he stepped up to her she looked up. “Captain Stahl!”

Someone on the other end said something, and she replied, “Yeah, it’s him, big as life.”

She heard something else and she said, “Captain, they want you downstairs.”

“Thanks, Welsh.” He turned and ran to the entrance to the subway, then down the steps because the motor had been turned off. When he reached the first floor down, he saw that there was a command area set up just inside the turnstiles where Elliot and another bomb technician were leaning over a video unit.

Stahl stepped close. “Hi, Elliot. Are you the supervisor of the scene?”

“For the moment I am,” he said. “Wyman and Neil are downrange. The damaged train cars are being towed to sidings to the north of the station so they’ll be out of the way. While that goes on, they’re trying to be sure there’s no other explosive device down the track between the location of the crash and the next station, which is Universal City.”

“You’re sure it was an explosive device, and not a crash?”

“Yes,” Elliot said. “The first car was charred, pitted, and scratched from the blast, and the surface tests positive for nitrate compounds. The tracks had been subjected to heat and lateral force. They’re bent and have to be replaced.”

“How far have Wyman and Neil gotten?”

“They’ve got two thousand feet of communication line on a wheel, and there’s plenty left, but they’re past the wreckage.”

Stahl said, “Not to second-guess anything, but why Wyman?”

Elliot shrugged. “No choice. He’s the ranking supervisor on this scene, and he decided to go. I was just suiting up when he got here and took charge.”

“Mind if I hang around?”

“I’d take it as a favor,” Elliot said. “As soon as they reconnect themselves to the line, we can see what else they find.”

“I’m pretty sure there will be something,” said Stahl. “This guy always leaves something for us to disarm. What do you know about the hookup for the first explosion?”

“I think the bomb was fairly small, placed between the left rail going south and the track for a switch to divert a train into another tunnel for maintenance. So when the front wheel of the train passed over the spot, the bomb went off under the front of the first car. It must have killed the driver instantly, and then derailed the first three cars. The railway people were able to tow everything behind that out of the way because it was mostly undamaged. They’re working on clearing the cars that were derailed, but there’s no telling how long that will take. They may have to use cutting torches and move them out in sections.”

There was a sudden change on the screen in front of Elliot. They saw hands appear. Then there was Neil’s voice. “Team One, this is Neil. Wyman says he’s found a second device on the maintenance walkway on the left side of the tunnel.”

“Want to tell him anything?” Elliot asked Stahl.

Stahl said, “Hey, Neil. This is Dick Stahl. Tell him not to touch anything until he’s shown it to us on the video feed. I think I’ll be able to identify what it is.”

Neil said, “He says he’s got it identified.”

Stahl said, “Remember, this isn’t about stopping a subway train to disrupt the morning commute. He’s trying to get us to make a mistake. If you find—”

There was a sudden bump that seemed to come up into the vault of the station from the train level below. It felt like a giant hammer hitting the bedrock foundation, and almost simultaneously there was a rush of air. It was similar to the feel of air forced out of a tunnel ahead of a train when it approached at high speed, but it came harder and hotter, filled with fine particles that stung the skin. And then the sound arrived, a deafening vibration that lasted a couple of seconds, shook solid rock and concrete, and made squares of tile drop from the walls and ceiling.

In another second it was gone, as though it had passed down the tunnel to the rest of the system. Stahl and Elliot looked at each other with the same horrified expression. Wyman had guessed wrong.